Physical material default appearance

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to edit the appearance of physical materials? If I use steel or aluminum, a default appearance is applied. But if I download 6061 aluminum, it seems to have no default appearance and I don't see a way to add one.

I at least found the "Display Study Material Colors" checkbox in simulation so all of my components aren't transparent anymore.

[TrippyLighting]

See if that answers some of your questions. Then come back 😉

https://myhub.autodesk360.com/ue29c9141/shares/public/SH7f1edQT22b515c761e78a02672e8401605

[Anonymous]

Could you tell me where in that 24 page answer it deals with applying a default appearance to a physical material?

[PhilProcarioJr]

Hi Jason,

Physical materials and appearance materials are separated in Fusion 360, Just apply your Physical material then right-click and add any appearance material you want and the appearance material will not effect the physical properties of that piece. Its confusing I know but that's how they do it. So you could have stainless steel Physical material with a wood appearance and the actual physical properties would still be stainless steel.

Hope this helps you.

Phil

[TrippyLighting]

Looks like I misunderstood the original question.

There is good reason to keep the physical material properltis separate form the appearance properties.

The physical properlties allow you to define a real material with spoecific mass, moduus, tensile strength etc. That data can be used for stress analysis etc.

Appearance has only to do with how a material will look in your renders, which may or may not reflect real physical properties..

[Anonymous]

Phil,

They aren't completely separate though. If I create a shape, open the physical materials dialog and apply Metal>Gold, the appearance changes to gold. Apply Wood>Bamboo, the appearance changes to bamboo. It would be nice to be able to duplicate this behavior with materials besides the default materials. It seems like the materials manager is only half complete because I can't create a new material that works like the default one.

[PhilProcarioJr]

Hi Jason,

I completley agree, I should be able to set both in one area, but you can't. Makes little to no sense to me, but depending on perspective its subjective.

I would like to see them in the same tool personally but the Fusion Team decided to seperate them, even if it wasn't a complete seperation. Either way I just wanted you to know how to get around the current implimentation to get the apperance you wanted with the physical properties you need.

I don't like the current material manager at all right now and I can get very little to work....

[PhilProcarioJr]

You can control both in solidworks in the same place and I've never read about any problems with their implementation in the last 10 years of using it.

I understand the need for physical materials but you still should be able to set the visual appearance in the same place..seems counter productive...

Even if they just implemented it to where you set the visual appearance in the physical material and it drives the just the appearance tool...

Still either way it's more clicks, more time, more of an opportunity to make a mistake if you have to check two tools instead of one. All of this = lost time and money.

Just my 2 cents

[Anonymous]

Phil,

It makes even less sense when in the default configuration, Fusion uses the physical material appearance in simulation, not the separately applied appearance. This results in the model being invisible if you use custom materials even if you applied an appearance. Why the Fusion team didn't use an opaque default appearance for new materials is baffling.

[PhilProcarioJr]

I agree, that doesn't make sense to me either....

That is probably a bug in Fusion....or at least I hope it wasn't intentional......

[TrippyLighting]

I agree that we should be able to connec the physical and appearance properties from one dialog.

These ideas get easily lost in the discussions here in the regular forum, so please post this in the idea forum. You'll have my vote.